


Half Moon, Full Circle

by Herbalina



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types, Wiedźmin | The Witcher Series - Andrzej Sapkowski
Genre: Addiction, Angst, Blood Addiction, F/M, Feelings, Flashbacks, M/M, Multi, Plot What Plot, Sad, Unresolved feelers, lots of hidden pining, sad and sweet?, so a bit of mememe mumbling in my style, third limited to omniscient, very concealed smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-22
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:01:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25438087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Herbalina/pseuds/Herbalina
Summary: At the unannounced visit of someone once very special to him, pre-B&W Regis ruminates what has happened in his teething years, what could have happened, and wonders what will happen now.
Relationships: Dettlaff van der Eretein/Emiel Regis Rohellec Terzieff-Godefroy, Emiel Regis Rohellec Terzieff-Godefroy/Original Character(s), Emiel Regis Rohellec Terzieff-Godefroy/Queen of the Night
Comments: 6
Kudos: 11





	Half Moon, Full Circle

**Author's Note:**

> There's going to be more of a character-study feel for this fic and not much plot as tagged, so be warned to sit through my excavation on what Regis' relationship with that "special vampire girl" was like, what was his relationship with his parents like, how did he feel growing up, and some vampire society headcanons of mine. Here's hope you like it;)  
> Not enough thanks could go to my lovely birbs who beta-ed for me [WholeLottaTiffy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WholeLottaTiffy/pseuds/WholeLottaTiffy), [Dordean](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dordean/pseuds/Dordean), and [OpheliaTheMoth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OpheliaTheMoth/pseuds/OpheliaTheMoth), for your comments, encouragement, and love <3

With a thoughtfully drawn-out gesture, Regis flipped the business sign on the door to “Closed.” His shop was filled with a painfully unfamiliar scent.

The sun had barely set, most common folks only just finished their daily work and had time to visit now, if not for a certain matter standing by the counter, he really would like to continue working. He was a practitioner of medicine, after all; a more-than-adequate Medicus with a lesser title only because he didn’t want to be affiliated with the official academia. It’s a small thing; but when you are a higher vampire who easily outlives a few generations of humans, no precaution is too prudent. 

Regis bolted the door m and finally turned around, without a prepared speech in mind. Despite how hard he tried to think of something right to say while he was tending the last patient, he had nothing right to say. 

Was there ever the right thing to say to an ex-lover?

***

In those early nights.

In those nights following her wordless departure after another of his “I solemnly promise ‘tis the last one” drinking spree, Regis would refuse all his friends’ invitations and inebriate himself in self-loathe and self-pity, alone in the empty cave that was once theirs.

He should have noticed her unhappy eyes, listened to the words she left unsaid and sniffed out what was wrong from the words she did say, which grew less and less towards the end. 

To everybody else, they seemed perfectly normal, aside from their different drinking habits. She refused to drink after trying only once; he still remembered her vehement passion when she refused, like a cat having been scorched by burning embers, now afraid of getting close to the fire. He knew why; the lack of control. Or, more precisely, the feeling of a state in which "control" ceased to mean anything. To Regis, it was bliss, an escape from memories he wished he didn't have, an escape from a world he often found trouble feeling comfortable in. He found it easier to communicate, or not communicate, after he's had a drop.

In many cases, words were not necessary for vampires to acquire information from each other--and in the cases of close mates who have exchanged blood, even thoughts. That was what made Regis strange among vampires; he liked talking. And in his teeth years, he hated that he liked it. _How like a human_. Preferring the inferior method of communication when he was made for something more. He didn’t know why he clung to verbal communication so much until much much later when he realized what he was trying to replace with words. 

_That's why they left you_. He believed it back then. 

Regis wondered often and sometimes he was sure his parents knew, that there was something wrong about him. 

Before he could remember anything but shadows, they left for the west across the sea and they didn't take him, leaving him to grow up with Dettlaff's family, who treated him well in their own ways. Polite, considerate, and faraway. When he and Dettlaff were thirty, as any vampires passed their coming-of-age ceremony, they left to find their own _environments._

It's a misconception that vampires all loved to dwell in crypts and mausoleum. Is was true, there was an abundance of them since humans dropped like mayflies, and for reason unknown to the young Regis, they were ever so keen on boxing their decomposing bodies to display in buildings ostensibly constructed with a promise to last centuries. The buildings were fine creatures, cool and keeping them away from sunlight, but the smell was horrid. To vampires, it’s always smells first, then everything else. 

They decided on a magnificent cave, located a little further down the Blessure, northwest of Fox Hollow. Later, a few other youths joined, all from Gharasham. Among them, there was her. A blue-eyed vampire with hairs of flame. A unity of two opposite sides, ice and fire. 

To Regis, it was almost love at first sight. Almost, because he always liked to be precise and he could not be precise since he already "has had a drop" when they first saw each other. And he never knew how he came to be worthy of her undivided affection, she never said it and he didn't dare to ask, afraid to expose his wrongness, maybe everything and more was all coded in those gentle caresses, only he lacked the keys to decrypt their meanings. 

Was it enough? He didn’t know. 

He thought it was, when she was with him. When her eyes lit up at seeing him, when she laughed at his witty remarks, exposing her teeth: graceful, sharp, reminding him of the tips of bodkins made of ivory. When she kissed him and measured him with those delicate instruments. When tiny light pink spots started to appear under her pale skin as they fumbled unto each other. When her hair fell around like the rays of sun afterward, and they would look at each other and kiss again and he would tell her things he had never told anyone before, not even himself. And most of all, she would do the same. They both cherished words, for the same reason.

He thought he found his refuge. The safe harbor for his excessive words, for this unwanted strangeness of himself. 

And maybe he did. Maybe it was enough. But it wasn’t long until he found something else too, and everything became too much.

She started hibernating frequently just before she left. When he came from a whole night’s revelry, he would see her, a tiny white bat, wing folded, swinging lightly in the cold, damp breeze as he opened the door of the crypt. Small. Desolate. 

One night, he woke up and smelled the emptiness. She had left. Her precious tomes, clothes, trinkets Dettlaff craved and gifted her when he introduced her to him. Two decades ended in a curt note.

In those early nights… He also resented her. For her self-appointed clemency, her passivity, for refusing to --

In those early nights, Regis told himself he would have stopped drinking if she didn’t refuse him the one thing he sought for due to the lack of it, and everything would be different. Much later, he admitted to himself that it was a lie and she was right; they could never raise happy children when he could barely control himself with the faintest smell of blood. 

In those early nights -- and it surprised him that it still hurt to remember those early nights, after all these years -- Regis imagined hundreds of scenarios where they would meet again. What he would say to her, what she would say to him, how it would end or begin. 

This was not how he imagined it.

***

Standing in front of the counter with arms resting on it, now fully materialized, a slight womanly figure wrapped in dark green woolen cloak. 

She didn’t move, didn’t make any gesture upon which he could guess her intentions. She stood and looked at him. Her eyes a specter of the past. 

A subtle but still intrusive scent wafted its way to his sensitive nose. Roses and sandalwood. Perfumes she never wore back then.

Back then, he would have kissed her and whispered “Calla” by her ears. But “back then” was a very long time ago.

"Lusine Mircalla Justina de Horogszeg." 

He spoke first. Full name and a half bow, keeping with the custom. 

The vampiress Mircalla left the counter, her gait silent and graceful, and stopped exactly two steps in front of him, also keeping in with their custom. Then they exchanged a light touch on the nose, a gesture of trust and acceptance practiced commonly by vampires in their generation. In this case, the physical contact meant little in terms of intimacy. Especially for them. He realized she hasn’t said anything.

The foreign smell of roses and sandalwood. 

"You look different." Mircalla dropped a short comment when their bodies parted into that painful formal distance, back to two steps apart. Close. Too far.

She had changed, too, not just the perfume, her thick woolen cloak, her red hair pulled up in a simple bun, a few strands fell over and emphasized her raised cheekbones. In all these years, when Regis remembered those nights and days, remembered the whole gang, remembered her, it was always the image of a flowing cascade of red. Flames lit up the long nights. His nights.

But no, Regis wasn’t thinking about _those_ differences. He had lived enough winters to know the essence of change lay beyond what eyes can see. Her face, although looked almost unaged besides a few lines that had begun to form by the corner of her large blue eyes, showed the passage of time. Her eyes were just as old as his.

He felt old, standing so close to her radiance. But he felt young at the same time. 

Outside, the sun must have gone down completely now, and Regis' medicine shop was lit only by the flickering light of an oil lamp in the steel clasp fixtured on the pillar, and this dimness brought on a false sense of relaxation and perhaps some reclaimed familiarity. It’s easier to talk in the dark, and as easily one can stay silent. 

Except Regis didn't want to give in to the silence. He wanted to get out of this equivocal gloom, this little medicine shop which, despite all its pungent smell of herbs, still smelled like Mircalla. The old Mircalla, hiding beneath the roses and sandalwood. And her smell was dismantling his hard-gained composure. He needed to find a place where they could sit down and communicate in... words.

He leaped across the room and snuffed out the lamp in a silvery flash, not bothered to observe the safety protocol – there were only the two of them, after all. All this time, Mircalla looked at him intently, not saying any more words. And Regis decided. 

“It’s time people start their meal of the day,” he said. “Would you like to eat some food at a tavern? My place has little decent ingredients left.” Then he added hastily, “The place sits by the jetty, travelers usually favor the view of shipping returning or setting off on Yaruga.” 

Immediately he reproached himself for reminding them both that she was only a traveler. 

He looked up at Mircalla and was surprised to see a sad little smile hanging at the corner of her delicate thin lips, which always contrasted so daringly with her sharp fangs; when she deigned to grant him the audience. 

He watched her, waiting for her to respond, allowing himself to register each minute movement of the muscle of her face, of the slight rising and falling of her chest, of that veiled flash of white when she opened her mouth for words, of the light freckles on her almost translucent skin, of her solemn, thick eyebrows, one rising higher than the other. For a moment he thought that there would be no response and she would just vanish without explanation like how she appeared. But he knew her better than that at least. Vampires held longevity to such extent that even a millennium meant little more than a half-traveled journey, they had all the time to consider and reconsider once mature enough. 

_The problem is, what is she consider, or reconsidering?_ He felt once again he was presented with a mystery case and he's wringing his head for clues. 

Mircalla replied, “I would dine with you, Emiel. You have questions and you cannot ask them without excuses, as usual. I see nothing has changed. Or perhaps living among humans suited this habit of yours among others.” 

She stopped herself, almost too quickly, as if she regretted having said too much. He looked away then, not wanting to give her any reason to think he was offended or upset. He pretended he just noticed the leather strap holding his medicine bag over the shoulder had come loose and started fidgeting. Living among humans taught him how to look more at ease during social faux pas. 

“I didn’t mean, you know,” Mircalla said in a low voice and bit her lip. _She didn’t say she’s sorry. But that was just as well_ . He thought. _I was not expecting anyone to say that. Absolutely not._

“Let’s be on our way.” He said, holding the door open for her. “The moon will rise soon.”

***

They sat at a table by the docks outside of Horst & Garben and ordered roasted beef, Pomino wine from Toussaint, and a dish of baked potato with sour cabbage for Mircalla since she ate no meat. The air became aromatic with the scents of bay leaves, ginger and thyme. Everything tasted wonderful. So did the wine.

The sun had set a while ago, but the moon has yet to rise. The whole town now was shrouded in a greyish blue, misty from the smoke of herbs that were being burned in braziers to avert the return of the plague. So maybe it was the smoke that made his head dizzy, _or maybe it was the wine_ , Regis thought wishfully, ignoring other feelings resurfacing inside his body.

It was way past Birke yet still chilling in the evening. Only a group of student-looking youngsters – probably going to be very drunk, by the smell of their blood – sat at a table across from them; but they were thoroughly engrossed in a slightly heated conversation about the war, women, and whether the world follows a heliocentric or a geocentric model. Regis thought most of them were wrong about all three things they were discussing, some of them might eventually get involved in two of the three things they thought they knew everything about, and wasting time on the one thing they could actually get a real answer from. In any case, they matter equally to him: for the moment, that was to say, nothing.

“I don’t know why,” Mircalla murmured, eyeing the students, “but I remember a conversation just like this, almost to the last detail, except they were talking about war, women, and whether the earth is spherical or flat with four edges and supported by some four-legged creatures underneath, flying on a disc.”

Regis wasn’t sure if he should reply. When she fell into a reverie like that, it was usually not meant for replies. He wished he had realized that back then. 

He waited for her to speak again, when she didn’t, he turned to look at her. 

She was looking elsewhere, her head turned away from their table and he looked away with her. He saw the river, the glistening ripples rhythmically lapped at the docks and the granite foundation of the city where it met Yaruga. 

“They are going to meet the sea.” Mircalla said in a voice so light he wouldn’t have picked up were he not a vampire. 

_Something is going to happen_ , he thought. Something _I’m not prepared to deal with. Why? After all this time, I thought I earned myself a little bit of rest.._.

Mircalla suddenly sat up, with a flourish of movement, took away the brooch that held her hair together and shook her head. In the night’s breeze, her red hair sailed full and wild, her body straight and slender. Having draped her cloak over the chairback, moonlight flooded through her dress and glowed on her skin beneath her linen shift. 

And her face, fine-boned, once so full of an unyielding unruliness, now retired to a resigned silence. 

Silence. 

"How long has it been? Two hundred years?" Finally, she asked in an unfamiliar voice.

“Two hundred, forty-two years, and fifty-two nights. I could not be sure of the hours since you left when I was sleeping." He replied evenly, surprising himself. _I’m not looking for an apology. She didn’t do anything wrong, after all, it was me, I ruined everything and I have long left all that behind me_. He attempted to convince himself for the last time. 

Her face grew even paler. For a moment, he swore he saw her shoulders tremble. But she didn’t say anything, nor did she drop her gaze. Silence rose high between them again, thicker than the mist.

"I'm glad you came." He finally found sound within himself again, overcoming the guilt of what he said, and without asking what has been on his mind.

Mircalla scrutinized him with her blue eyes, which already started glowing dimly since the nightfall, but were hidden well thanks to the complimentary moonlight. Regis remembered those eyes from another time, glowed with tenderness and ardent passion. Long ago.

"You changed much, Regis." She shook her head slightly, sighed, and sank back to her chair. "We are not them. When we feel tired, we rest; when we are sad, we do not put our wails into ballads nor do we sulk but pretend we are happy. And when we have doubts, we ask directly without having first thought of a thousand justifications.” 

“Why the pretense? Ask. You want to know why I’ve come, unannounced. I would tell you. You waited long enough, after all."

She broke off, as if to instill courage in herself, clasped her hands together. He noticed the white on her already-pale knuckles.

"Because I'm leaving. Tomorrow. I'm sailing to the west, beyond The Great Sea, to live with our brethren from Ammurun. I'm tired of the continent. Of humans and their stupid wars on other races and themselves, of not being able to keep a home even in the forest, because of human expansion. Of their magicians, treating us as potential collections to put in a pickle jar." 

“I’m leaving because I, too, was left by people who sailed for the west. For a long time, I told myself that I will never, never give them a chance to look me in the eye again; not even to satisfy the little viper that craves for revenge.”

“But I cannot lie to myself any longer. I want to know why. I can’t help it. I understood that this ennui and despair that so often found me again and again in silence, even when I was with someone I thought would ‘heal’ me; it had a root, unlike us. Which was probably why they…”

She trailed off on an unnatural tone, and he saw something glistened in her eyes, and so wished to hold out his hand and touch her face, to wipe away the tears before they come. Instead he felt pain in his own hands. He looked down and noticed he was also clutching his hands in tight fists, and the fingernails dug into his palms. 

_Isn't it like the symbol of our tribe?_ He thought. _Blood in our own hands. Whose blood? Who had drawn it? We were left here, on the continent. A forever not-home._

She looked into his eyes, and slowly, approached his hands with her own. 

“That’s why I also have to sail away, across the ocean. I came to understand I still need to know why. I want them to look at me and hear my words, want them to give me their reasons, and who knows, maybe reconciliation?”

“Ammurun has been the largest in number, and some rumors were heard of their discovery on lakes or mirrors with mysterious properties to help transition the passage of space. Maybe they will discover a way to go back to our world. And who knows, maybe I will also --” 

She squeezed his hand gently and dropped her gaze, but not for long. This time she was ardent with anxiety and expectation.

“I have to come here. Before I leave, I need to ask you – "

She stopped abruptly, and he read everything from her eyes. So did she.

He had no answer. 

He was worried about Dettlaff. Something had gone wrong recently. Though there were no letters, bats, or ravens, the fact that they haven’t spoken for a year didn’t make the blood connection sing a bit quieter. He was afraid Dettlaff was in trouble. How can he leave now? After what Dettlaff had done for him, after those nights and days?

All he could do was to reach across the table and held her hands tighter.

“Stay with me,” Regis whispered, he felt something stuck in his throat. “Just tonight.”

And so Mircalla stayed. 

***

They waited until the church bell struck the second time and disappeared into the night. When they reappeared through the half-open window in his bed-chamber, they both laughed, not too loudly and shushed each other at the same time, which only brought more laughter. Then they closed the window, safety protocols, and they sat down, closely this time, and told each other stories from time past, after parting and before meeting again. The death, the witcher, hansa, then death again, and Dettlaff. She was glad to know Dettlaff had found him back then. Then she grew a little sad, thinking, how she never got to say goodbye to him. In the depth of her being, somewhere sounded a voice and the voice told her they would all meet again some day, in happier circumstances. She believed that voice. She needed it to sail away.

In the end, she kissed him, and he kissed her back. He carefully left marks on her lips, the back of her delicate neck, her left breast, slightly smaller than the other one, and on the back of her neck, where a tiny mole the color of cinnabar rested. He felt her hands in his hair. 

Afterward, they lay entangled in their nakedness, happy, but with a sense of apprehensiveness brought on by the whiting of the eastern sky. 

Regis stroke Mircalla’s hair gently with one hand while holding her in his temperateness in the other. Thoughts drifted around them.

_Do you ever have this feeling, that your life, of all the trillions of life forms that walk, fly, swim, trill-however they have it- this earth, is constantly entangled in some strange business, thrown in the whirlpool of the eye of the storm that humans refer to as Destiny?_

_When I was with you, all the time._

_Still? I am but a humble barber-surgeon now, a resident of a moderately civilized city, residing in this moderate abode, whose staircase moderately decorated with fashion from King Vridank’s time creaks like broken windpipe when my moderately corpulent neighbor returns to his wife after the nightly visits from the bordello—not the one two blocks east from the city gate, the one near the docks, where the smell of fishery intersect with the smell of, ahem, well. Details aside, what am I saying?_

_Regis?_

_Yes, Calla._

_I’m sorry._

_Me, too._

He felt her gentle movement in his arm and the muscle on her face contracted, he smelled the faint smell of sorrow and something wet fell onto this chest, lodged in, making his heartache.

He leaned down and kissed her hair, no longer smelling like perfume, then her forehead, then her cheek, still wet from tears, and her lips found his. 

***

In late spring, night rain was always gentle and undisturbing, with their comforting whispers they came and went, leaving the lovers hopeful dreams.

***

Early morning, before the sky had turned white, a golden oriole came by the window and sang, quite relentlessly. The couple were weary from last night’s labor and murmured who should get up and shoo it away. But because they got lost and entangled in the words, in the end, they let the oriole sing. Afterward, Mircalla told Regis to close his eyes and sleep, so he did. When he woke up, she had left, and the sun was high up in the sky. 


End file.
